Bob went for the kitten

simplysardonic · #1 (**permalink**) 16-11-2009, 08:28 PM

He was eating his tea & one of the kittens approached, as they have done before countless times with no problems but this time he really bared his teeth & growled at her. Can I stop this before it becomes an issue? He is not 'guardy' over food usually. He was neutered 3 weeks ago today & TBH his behaviour has deteriorated, he has developed some annoying habits such as stealing off the worktop, chewing up my kids' toys & chewing round the necks of the 2 foster dogs, which he hasn't done before. He's about 14 months old now so I'm hoping it's just because he's an adolescent not some kind of negative reaction to being neutered

lemmsy · #2 (**permalink**) 16-11-2009, 09:01 PM

This is a little post I wrote in another thread about guarding behaviour towards other dogs and then pasted (and edited bit of it again to add specific examples of human directed RG) into another thread concerning human directed resource guarding. So both dog and human directed RG has been covered. However like you have experienced, resource guarding can be directed towards other animals. The following post should shed some light as to why the behaviour occured, however I do think the fact that Bob was recently neutered could be relevant. When they are neutered, naturally their testosterone levels decrease and so they loose a bit of "Omph" which is why with a fear problem or something that worried the dog mildly before, you can see the dog start to act upon his fear.
That said, it can take several months for them to totally adapt after neutering so it may like you say just be a phase mixed with a case of the "Kevin's" (Harry Enfield

) but definately something worth working on (adding food to his bowl for instance when puddycat is around)

Quote:

Sure

I'm guessing the way you see it is the dog is guarding because it is "dominant" and wants reinforce their status by letting the other dogs/people know that the toy for instance is theirs and claiming such/simular objects?

Fair enough.

The only issue I have with this explanation is that a truly "dominant" dog would normally not need to reinforce it's position by using aggression as the other dogs would recognise this and not try it on. Even if in one incident the "dominant" dog did need to guard an object because say a younger dog pushed the boundaries and attempted to take an object that was of value to the dog, said dog would respond with a warning and that would be the end of it.
Also what needs to be considered is the difference in the event I have just described ( a scuffle over one object) and true resource guarding (which is what the OP's case sounds like to me), which involves repeated incidences and generally the dog will have generalised the objects that guards and the triggers that start any resource guarding reaction.

IMO and as recent studies have suggested many dogs examine each dog to dog relationship individually and behave according (very much like humans do), this would explain why one dog might be very respectful of one strong willed dog but push it a little with another. BTW, I'm not dismissing dominance completely (anyone who has multi-dog households will see evidence of a hierachy among their dogs). However I do feel that the term "dominance" is overused.

Anyway back on topic . Resource guarding to my understanding can be a slightly more complicated in some cases.

The following article pretty much explains my understanding of resource guarding and makes pretty interesting reading I think:
resource guarding

I also particularly like this article which IMO explains resouce guarding really well:
Resource Guarding | Ahimsa Dog Training, Seattle | Dog and Puppy Tips from Seattle |

Essentially guarding is an adaptive behaviour (inherited which aids survival of the animal) which is believed to have derived from dogs' ancestor, the wolf. It was crucial to their survival as many resources would only be available at certain times and were therefore incredibly valuable. As it was limited dogs and wolves would need to be able to look after their food so that other animals or members of their "pack" were not able to take it.
This is why, as the article states we do not see guarding behaviours in grazing animals- why would a cow need to guard it's grass when there is a field full?

Anyway this is where the "fear" comes in. If a dog, were to loose it's food source, this would many thousands of years ago, hinder it's survival. Hence the reason why they might use aggressive type behaviours (snarling and growling for instance) to protect it. Aggression to canines is a risky behaviour but in these instances it was certainly necessary to ensure the animal's survival.
To take another example, a female canine might growl and snarl to defend her puppies from other animals or other dogs. In this sense particularly, guarding has aspects of prepotency (evolving to respond to potential threats rather than responding after a threatening event; if the bitch was only to respond after the event her pups may not have survived etc) and also the idea of biological preparedness (in this sense the pups' ability to learn/acquire a fear (of strangers in this instance) to aid their survival).

For today's canines, who rely upon us to be fed etc, the risk of loosing food is significantly diminished. However as guarding is an adaptive evolutionary behaviour many canines use guarding to respond to modern day stimuli and protect themselves and their social group from them.
For instance, an insecure dog that guards it's people when strangers approach is doing so because it is fearful of strangers and sees them as a threat to their "pack" (this is not a dominance problem, more that the owner is not responding to the dog's insecurity, working on the fear issue and controlling the situation so that their dog no longer feels threatened; the owner needs to be a "gentle leader" who is in tune with their dog and it's needs).
Simularly, a dog may learn to resource guard when it is scolded for growling at another dog that tries to take it's toy (the growl would in this instance be a minor warning). (*Or in your case scolding the dog for growling when you passed his food bowl* (a warning that the dog is not comfortable with you approaching him and his food whilst he is eating)*) However the owners, in not recognising this and not allowing the dogs to sort it out alone (Janice's point- which I feel is a fair one ) scold the dog and remove the object. (I.e. to relate this to human directed resource guarding, by scolding/punishing the dog you reinforce and "confirm" his fear of people being too close to his food- this is how the resource guarding develops from mere growling to "going through"/nipping/biting) Because the dog is scolded by the owner and the object is removed, the dog comes to negatively associate the other dog's presense around toys and begins to react more severely (snarling/bearing teeth and even biting) because they have learnt that growling does not worK and even worse the, presence of the other dog, result in immediate removal of the valuable resource (toy). (As before to relate this to human directed RG- the dog learns to associate the presense of any human and/ or dogs around his food with the immediate removal of the food and so the resource guarding worsens- the dog learns that the "growling" is not working and so has to resort to biting/nipping) They may also generalise their fear and begin to guard food, toys, socks and even like in the OPs example, apparently worthless items such as toilet roll tubes.

So... how is resource guarding solved?
In short, as the article states (the second one):

Quote:

Make your puppy or dog understand that the approach of a humans ( or dog) to his food, toys, space, etc. is a GOOD thing.

Depending on the severity of the guarding issue, this is done very gradually.
With a dog that has a severe problem, they might first work at desensitizing the dog to the human approaching the dog when it has a very low value item. Only when the dog is comfortable at this stage would they work at gently interacting with the dog when they have a low value item, exchange the item (swaps) and reinforcing calm behaviour (using positive reinforcement). Basically you want to condition the dog (using both classical and operant conditioning) to accept people/dogs coming near them when they have an item and removing it and they need to view this as a positive event/experience.

I particularly like the second articles explanation of why resource guarding is NOT a dominance issue:

Quote:

It’s a huge mistake to label a dog with a resource guarding problem as ‘dominant’. This is largely because it is just too simplistic to think that everything a dog might do which his owners disapprove of is some kind of a bid for power, especially if it involves threat behavior. This label can also encourage owners to look for opportunities to score points back on their dog when their time would be much better spent looking for opportunities to teach the dog not to guard his possessions and to reward him for doing other things.

Anyway... think I've gone on a bit longer than I intended to...
Sorry about the waffling... I find this sort of thing really interesting

Thanks

From the following thread:
Fighting

Hope this helps
__________________

Hope this helps

MerlinsMum · #3 (**permalink**) 16-11-2009, 09:17 PM

Don't forget that cats are also very intelligent, and although it was frightening for the kitten to be growled at, you can bet the cat will not go near the dog now when he's eating. Perhaps more scary for you! Remember the kitten is learning how to adapt to the new home and environment and you can be sure she will have taken all that on board, soaking up new information like a little sponge.

I had the same issues when I got my kitten, now a cat - although in general Merlin is very well behaved around her, he would not tolerate her nearby while he was eating and once lunged, scaring her quite a bit. She learned very quickly just to avoid him at feeding time.

simplysardonic · #4 (**permalink**) 18-11-2009, 04:48 PM

Thankyou both for your replies- he was much better last night, Midnight approached the bowl again & he just gave a little grunt & carried on eating so it may just have been a one-off, it's reassuring to know it's fairly common behaviour. Thanks again

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